


Memories of Ragnarok

by jenna_thorn



Category: Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-27
Updated: 2004-10-27
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7651231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Odin - for the amnesia challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories of Ragnarok

"My lord, will you join us?"

"In a moment, my lady."

"Will you not call me by name, my husband?" 

He turns to face her and she does not flinch at what his fingers tell him is scarred.

"You know me," he says, more than a question, but less than a statement of fact.

"I do, my lord." 

"I should know you. I should know your face, have memories of your touch from yesterday, a year ago, a decade ago."

"You should."

"I should know by the set of your mouth whether you are angry or sad." 

She turns away to face the mists of the north, but he continues, "I think perhaps that I would like to remember kissing you." 

"You will." Her tone is moderate though the emphasis is clear, but a nervous twisting of her necklace underscores her frustration. "Tomorrow this fey mood shall have passed and you will be yourself again. In an hour, you will be you, and I will be me, and this stranger will have left my home."

"Do you think me weak, my lady, that I spend a day in silence?" He smoothes her cloak over the curve of her shoulder and she shivers beneath his touch. 

"You rule the land," she says. 

He grunts, less a vocalization than an acknowledgement

"You rule us, my lord."

"Ah…," he rubs at the ridges around his eye, "Do I rule well?"

"With wisdom."

"Yes, and with Thought and with Memory and with strategy and with absolute certainty in my own….Ah, I think I can recognize that emotion, my lady." 

With a set jaw, she faces outward again to watch the ravens circle in the distance.

"When you care to rejoin us, we will be waiting," she snaps as she turns back to the light of the hall, toward her hearth and her sons, but he catches her hand. He measures his palm against hers, noting where the thread of the spinning wheel has worn a callous on her finger, where the hilt of his sword has done the same to his own.

They stand for a moment and then a moment more, in silence. At length she leans into his warmth, and kisses him lightly on the cheek. "Know that we are here, and we await you, my husband," she says as she leaves behind the harsh cold of the open balcony.

The ravens in the distance respond immediately to the lift of his hand and his body responds as his mind does not, shrugging each into place, a burden on each shoulder far greater than the weight of hollow bone and feathers. One raven, for a last moment still unknown, croaks, dropping something round and hard from its beak. He catches it by reflex, only realizing he has done so when the smooth weight slaps into his calloused palm.

Odin closes his eye, crushes the acorn, and remembers the future of them all.


End file.
